WikiLeaks: Sinn Fein Leaders Knew of Bank Heist
The Guardian reports Sunday that Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness carried out negotiations for the Good Friday agreement with Irish then-prime minister Bertie Ahern while the two had explicit knowledge of a bank robbery that the Irish Republican Army was planning to carry out. The information comes from a WikiLeaks cable.
The cable states that Ahern figured Adams and McGuinness knew about the 26.5 million pound Northern Bank robbery of 2004 because they were members of the "IRA military command," according to the Guardian. Adams has always maintained he is not a member of the IRA.
One cable reads, "The [prime minister] ... believes Sinn Fein leaders were aware of plans to rob the Northern Bank even as they negotiated with him last fall. Publicly, he has been unprecedentedly critical of Sinn Fein and, until recently, greatly reduced private contacts as well," according to the Guardian.
The 1998 Good Friday agreement was a massive aid to the Northern Ireland peace process. It included among its many provisions that all parties involved in the process would use exclusively peaceful and democratic means, and there would be a repeal of the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 by British Parliament.
Adams is running for a seat in the Irish parliament. He stepped down from his Northern Ireland assembly seat to do so.